A Work in Progress

How about a good old fashioned call round up? A pleasantly confused old lady with a fever. 'Would you tell me your birthday?' Huge, mischievous smile 'No.' 'Alright, you do what you do.' 'Thank you for a great dinner.' 'Anytime.' 'I'm so glad that's over.' 'Yes. Me too'. (Continues to hospital). A kid that ate iron supplements. PS. this can be VERY bad for adults but especially children. But in the first stages, all I had to deal with was another kid whom didn't quite like me. A kid who stabbed themselves with an adult epi pen. PS. I don't really know how bad this can be especially when everything is fine after 45 minutes. Poison control agreed in this instance. A delightfully bright elderly lady with basically nothing wrong with her. When I stood her up from her chair she was about a head and a half shorter than I am. There was a pregnant pause before she said. "That's as high as I...

I had a recent encounter with a family who had expectations for me that I didn't meet. They called for their unconscious family member.  Having met this patient before, I work very hard to not fall into 'The boy who cried wolf' mode.  I take every call seriously until otherwise informed.  This person was unconscious.  Or were they?  It is my job to figure out why they're unconscious.  I see they are breathing sufficiently, I pry open their eyelids and look at their pupils. I feel their pulse on their wrist.  I pull out the glucometer to check their blood sugar.  This is when the yelling started.  "Why are you doing that?!"  When I fail to match their anger, they get angrier.  "I don't know why you're doing that.  [they] don't have a sugar problem!"  Again, my answer is too calm.  I continue my assessment, take their blood pressure, and wait for my partner to return with a device to get their limp ...

The other day we went for a medical alert call.  The good ol' "I've fallen and I can't get up." call.  These are some of my favorites.  Sometimes they are over fast.  The patient is embarrassed, we pick them up, put them in a chair and they thank us but want us to leave before the neighbors see the ambulance outside.  Sometimes we get to break stuff.  If all the doors are locked and the patient can't get to them to open them, things get broken which is always good fun. And, sometimes we get to stay a while. In the last year I've picked people off the ground many times, but one lady about four times alone.  I don't mind going to her house because she is fiery, funny, and likes to talk.  Boy does she like to talk.  The last time we were there we picked her up, cleared away the mess she had inadvertently made, took trash out and whistled at her new pet bird.  On this occasion, one of our volunteers who works in a big town was...

Yeah, I haven't written since June.  Not here at least.  Yeah, I don't really know why.  Yeah, I've kind of waited to get over my crisis of hating the job before I wrote again.  Yeah, sometimes I hate the best job in the world. It's kind of my biennial problem of getting a little burned out, working a little too much, and encountering a few too many people that just make me wonder where the world is heading.  Although, now I've feeling far more Zen about it  than I ever have.  Because, for the first time, I talked to people about my problem.  Not a professional (maybe next time) but I felt other people out about my misgivings and low and behold, it worked.  I found that I am certainly not alone in my feelings.  Also, if I need to benchmark myself against the best people, I have a few in mind. It's easy to lose sight of hope in this business of EMS.  At least I think so.  We do see a lot of sil...

My bricks came in.

James River birds.

Update on the patio. Getting closer, I guess.

Fancy pants new ambo. Maybe one day I'll get to ride it it.

Fixed the problem of the offending screw/metal bit/whatever cut me. Take that, air filter!

My first stitches...aw.

View from the ambo. Parked, of course. I think.

Lunch of a champion.

The world knows when I am running late.

Lucky me!

Community!